


Keep My Eyes Open, My Lips Sealed, My Heart Closed

by thegrumblingirl



Series: Why Don't You Save Me? (1 Million Celebration) [7]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Abduction, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Corvo discovers they're all crazy, Daud discovers his conscience, F/M, Guilt, Jessamine discovers she has a thing for assassins, M/M, POV Daud, Polyamory, Pre-Relationship, grumble is back on her OT3 bullshit, terrible circumstantial flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-14 11:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21014957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: The bodyguard’s early return ruined the plan, in more ways than one. For Burrows, it was one more thing woefully and insolently slipping past his tenuous need for control — for Daud, it was yet another complication to what was already an utter nightmare. Attano wasn’t supposed to be there. He was supposed to arrive two days later, when the Whalers could pick up him before he ever reached the Tower. They’d need to, if there was to be any getting to him. Burrows wanted to be waiting for him, with the dreadful news, to use him for his own ends after the Empress’ death. The aspiring Lord Regent was not to know that the assassin he’d paid to do his dirty work had… other ideas. Such as not murdering an Empress at all.





	Keep My Eyes Open, My Lips Sealed, My Heart Closed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ferociouskitten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferociouskitten/gifts).

> To celebrate posting 1 MILLION words on this here AO3, I [gave away ten request slots](https://screwtheprinceimtakingthehorse.tumblr.com/post/187537485520/grumbles-1-million-give-away) (all gone now). This is #7 — for ferociouskitten.
> 
> Soundtrack: [Hurricane by MS MR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H502lWKVSFQ).

The bodyguard’s early return ruined the plan, in more ways than one. For Burrows, it was one more thing woefully and insolently slipping past his tenuous need for control — for Daud, it was yet another complication to what was already an utter nightmare. Attano wasn’t supposed to be there. He was supposed to arrive two days later, when the Whalers could pick up him before he ever reached the Tower. They’d need to, if there was to be any getting to him. Burrows wanted to be waiting for him, with the dreadful news, to use him for his own ends after the Empress’ death. The aspiring Lord Regent was not to know that the assassin he’d paid to do his dirty work had… other ideas. Such as not murdering an Empress at all.

The day Burrows’ agents had come to him with that contract and the promise of a coffer full of coin, Daud had locked himself away in his office for hours, giving not even Lurk a reason, much less an explanation.

Regicide. On the eve of a catastrophe Daud did not need to be witch or seer to know was upon them: with the Rat Plague failing to account for who was rich and who was poor, who of noble or of common birth, Dunwall was falling quickly. Some, like High Overseer Campbell, were fond of saying, ‘Let it, it’s the wicked people’s punishment.’ It only convinced Daud further that the Abbey had ties to Burrows and whoever else was involved in this grubby attempt at a coup. He had dutifully neglected informing Burrows that he had _proof_ of how his scheming had led to the introduction of infected Pandyssian rats into the streets of Dunwall. Proof he had been sitting on as though on a bed of nails, reminding him at every move that what he knew could decide the fate of the Empire more than any life he had ever ended.

His interest was coin, he’d told Billie when she’d challenged him, the only one who dared; not to play Spymaster.

“It’s the _acting_ Spymaster whose monsters are ravaging this city. And they’re coming for us next, Daud, make no mistake,” she’d reminded him. She had a point.

The only question was whether he should care if Dunwall went to drown in its own filth. He could go anywhere. He owed this city, these people, nothing. To them, he was merely the Knife. He was their butcher, although he carried a blade rather than a hatchet. It made little difference to those he left bleeding out into their expensive carpets. He was made of dead men’s money, and his debts would never be paid except in blood. He had plenty of that, on his hands and on his name. He’d long recognised the hollowness of his soul, the abandonment of the hope he might have had, one day. Before all this. Hope that had drowned in the waves crushing against the rock of Whitecliff, its cries torn asunder by the wailing wind.

The noble blood he’d spilt, it was no triumph. Some might call it justice.

Daud was loathe to call it service.

And now, the assassination of an Empress caused him, what? A crisis of faith?

Whatever faith he’d ever had, he’d misplaced long ago. Coin was a cruel god in that it did not speak, nor did it offer penance; but Daud liked that cruelty well. Another god would have made empty promises by now.

Daud pinned _her_ portrait to the board behind his desk. She was sitting there, in the Tower, unprotected, just waiting to be crossed off. Yet another in a long list. Too long. Not long enough?

Daud knew who to ask to receive an answer he would not like.

* * *

“Do _not_ harm the child,” he barked one last time against the wind. Creeping along the roof of the water lock, he could see the girl, and her parents, distraught by the first attack. They’d like the second even less. Later, Daud would argue that it was bad luck they had to leave Attano behind. In truth, he simply hadn’t been part of the plan.

When Daud removed the gag from the Empress’ mouth, he expected her to scream her lungs out. Instead, she was frighteningly calm.

“Where is my daughter?”

“In the next room. We sedated her to be able to trans—transport her, but she will wake soon.”

She seemed to be fighting with herself: which emotion to give precedence, and what to believe of him — and her fate in his hands.

“If you had orders to kill me, I would be dead already,” she said, as if reasoning with herself. Or bargaining with _him_.

He stepped closer, bending down to where she was bound to the chair, letting her have a good view of the ugly, crooked scar carved into his cheek. To her credit, she did not recoil, but she could not hide the revolted curl of her lip. He smiled savagely.

“I do have orders to kill you,” he rasped, sensing without having to get closer the way her heard seized in her chest. “Do you know from who?”

For a moment, he thought she might refuse to play the little game, but then she pursed her lips, looking so disapproving that he might have laughed.

“Campbell,” she said after short consideration.

Daud raised his eyebrows. “Warm. Look closer to your side of the river.”

“There are plenty,” she returned.

“True. But only one who sought to deprive you of your bodyguard,” Daud said, gauging her reaction. It was immediate.

“That coward,” she hissed, balling up her fists inside her bonds.

He watched her, dispassionately.

“I’m assuming he pays you well,” she looked up at him. He stood before her, his arms crossed over his chest, the only obstacle between her and the door. Him, and the rope around her ankles. Rulfio had muttered that surely it wasn’t necessary — until he’d found the switchblade hidden in her boot. “How much do you want?” she continued.

“From you? A stack of royal pardons.”

“And in return?” Her gaze was full of distrust, but otherwise she betrayed nothing. She was good.

He removed the knife they’d taken off her from his belt and flicked out the blade.

“Burrows’ head on a pike,” he said roughly, setting the edge of the blade to the ties at her wrist. “Sound good?”

“On one condition.”

He kept still. “That being?”

“You get Corvo out of wherever they’re holding him. You. Not your Whalers.”

He ground his teeth. The bodyguard could be an asset, once he stopped playing raging bull. ‘Whirlwind,’ the Watch officers who’d seen him in the practice yard called him, half in awe, half green with envy.

“Done.”

“Good. Now cut me loose.”

“It won’t be me taking the orders here, _Your Highness_.”

“Your Majesty will do,” she corrected his deliberate misstep oh so politely. “I’m well aware of the hand that holds the knife, _Daud_. Your hands may do violence, but I’ve seen enough men with different dreams in their hearts. I wonder, are you one of them?”

He cast his eyes away, and her words from his mind.

“My heart is a place you do not want to go,” he growled, slicing through her restraints. (The knife — if it truly was hers — was well-kept.)

“We shall see, then, Knife.” When he stepped aside, she stood, gingerly touching her wrists. “Now I’d like to see my daughter.”

_Nobles_, Daud thought as he led her through the door into one of the other rooms. _Any request sounds like an order because no-one’s ever told them no_. It did not escape his notice that he had not refused her, either.

* * *

The girl cried when she first woke, and then she stilled in fear at being surrounded by the same masks that had attacked her family. By the time her mother had explained what had happened — a less heavily edited version of events than Daud would have expected — she resolved to _thank them_.

Billie cast Daud a glance that made it clear she believed the girl was soft in the head. Privately, Daud thought she was brave. Bravery was often foolish and young.

Things had barely settled when another cry arose: “Where’s Corvo?”

And thus, Daud saw himself confronted with the demands not only of an Empress, but a precocious Princess, too, that he save their bodyguard. The next look he got from Lurk told him that he had brought this on himself.

* * *

Burrows had to be weakened where it hurt first — and that meant, the money. But despite their best efforts, the Whalers still had not discovered the identity of his funding partner beyond her last name: Boyle. Spoilt for choice, Daud decided to try his luck somewhere else first.

“Are you sure Campbell knows where Burrows is holding Corvo?” the Empress asked as she watched him assemble the gear he needed for a trip up Clavering.

“We’d know if they had him in Coldridge by now. Too many informants among the guards, no. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were holding him right here.” He tapped the map of Dunwall unrolled on his desk, marking the Old Abbey. “Or Holger Square itself, whichever has the more up to date torture equipment.”

She flinched. “Torture him for information,” she said, and he nodded.

“Or to draw you out. If you were dead on the steps of that gazebo, all they’d want from him would be a false confession. Now? They really do need him to talk. And they’ll only grow more impatient when they realise he doesn’t know anything.”

He watched as she let her fingertips trail over the map, along the Wrenhaven, and then inward to Dunwall Tower.

“If they’ve… made him suffer too much,” she began, her voice turning as brittle as the mortar holding her Empire together, and Daud stopped her there.

“It’s been a week,” he cautioned her of woe. “They haven’t broken him yet.”

“How do you know?” Hopeless challenge in her eyes.

Daud shrugged. “Doesn’t he love you?”

“What do you know of love?” she queried.

He smiled grimly. “Nothing.” Then, he left her standing by the desk. He had work to do.

* * *

Substituting Attano’s bruised and broken body in the chair with Campbell’s worthless hide was likely the most righteous Daud had ever — and would have ever — felt.

“Come on, bodyguard,” he murmured as he heaved the Royal Protector up unto his shoulder. “I have two women in my ear all day about saving your sorry mug.”

Being as he was unconscious, Attano did not appreciate the humour of the situation. A pity, really.

Whatever they had used to sedate Attano had to have some hallucinogenic properties, too; for when he woke, he thrashed and howled and bit. Perhaps they had been trying to turn him into a hound, Daud thought as he helped Rulfio hold the man down so someone, anyone, could shove an elixir down his throat to purge the rest of the poison. When it was done, Attano blinked.

Then, he screamed.

“What have you done to her? Where is she? Where’s Jessamine?” He made to get up, and Daud stepped closer again, glad they had had the foresight to remove _anything_ from this room that might have been used as a weapon. Including the bedside table. His wrists were too raw to shackle him, and besides. He _wasn’t_ a prisoner.

“She’s safe, Attano. The Princess, too. And you are in no condition to be going anywhere, so how about you take it easy.”

“Why would I believe you?” Attano snarled.

“Because he’s telling the truth, Corvo,” the Empress stepped into the attic room through the other door; answering Daud’s gesture to stay back with a placating one of her own. “Emily and I are safe. Daud brought us here to act against Burrows and Campbell. He and his Whalers have been protecting us. And he came to get you because I asked him to.”

“Ordered, you mean,” Daud rumbled, his eyes still trained on Attano for the tiniest wrong movement. Until he knew what those bastards had dosed him with, he’d not be left alone with either the Empress or her daughter.

“I thought you didn’t take orders,” she countered.

Attano’s gaze flicked between them.

“Were you _planning _this?”

“Neither this entire mess nor this conversation is going to plan, Attano,” Daud cut in. “But if you mean to ask whether we hatched his plan while you were gone: the answer is no. Your Empress is not keeping secrets from you. As for mine, they will remain my own.”

“Your heresy is hardly a secret,” Attano showed that he was at least feeling up to mouthing off.

“Congratulations,” Daud grated.

A soft snort drew their attention to where the Empress stood, watching them.

“Pardon me,” she said, “only I believe you two will find you are more alike than you think.”

_Oh,_ Daud thought, _I hope not_.

**Author's Note:**

> prompt was: "Royal OT3 + hurt prompt 'you're in no condition to go anywhere'"


End file.
